A New Jersey Parent Responds to TIME’s Cover

This is one part of a series of posts of readers’ responses to TIME’s “Rotten Apples” cover.

When I saw TIME’s cover saying it was nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher, I whispered “thank you.”

This is a very personal issue for me. My son, Akian, who has Autism, was verbally tormented by his teaching staff. I know this because I placed an audio recorder in his pocket after seeing him suffer emotional pain when he was in school. When I heard what had been done to him, my life shattered.

I released a video telling Akian’s story which has been seen nearly 5,000,000 times. I received thousands of emails from victims of teacher bullying and desperate parents seeking help because their children were suffering in school just as Akian had. I realized then how pervasive this plague of teacher bullying was and the vast array of people who…